Vyšší Brod Monastery

The suggestion to found the monastery was given in 1259 by Vok I from Rožmberk, representative of one of the most prominent Czech aristocratic families, who invited Cistercian monks from the Upper Austrian monastery Wilhering to his estate. The Rožmberk family had close ties with the monastery and most of its members were buried in the Rožmberk crypt up until the family became extinct in 1611. The monastery is one of the few in south Bohemia that functioned continuously until 1941, when it was dissolved due to the abbot’s anti-Nazi attitudes. (The monastery was located in the area that had been annexed by Nazi Germany.) Its post-war reconstruction was prevented in 1950 by the Czechoslovak communist regime as a part of the so-called Action K, a violent dissolution of monasteries and male Catholic religious orders. Monks did not return to Vyšší Brod until 1990.

The core of the originally fortified monastery appeared approximately between 1260s and 1350s. The eastern wing of the monastery was built first, together with the chapter house and sacristy, to which the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, with choir and transept with four chapels, was added. The architecture of this part reflects strong influences of north French Classical Gothic. In the 14^th century, a cloister was built that encircled the atrium on all four sides and a hall with three naves was added to the church. It was built in the same way as other churches without a steeple; the current one dates to 1692. In 1753–1755 a Baroque library with two richly decorated halls was set up. A new convent building, built after 1671, and a spacious prelature building, which now houses the Postal Museum, were added to the medieval core of the monastery. The monastery is also famous for its art collections, which contain some of the most important works of art in the Czech Republic: e.g. the Záviš Cross from the 13^th century, an exceptionally valuable work of medieval goldsmithery, or the collection of nine panel paintings from the 14^th century by the Master of Vyšší Brod (the so-called Vyšší Brod cycle, on a long-term loan in the Prague National Gallery), which belongs to the foremost monuments of European Gothic painting. Other valuable works of Gothic and Baroque painting are exhibited in the two galleries of the monastery.